67 People Charged In Uganda After Raid On Gay Bar
67 people have been charged with causing a nuisance in Uganda after they were arrested in a gay-friendly bar and LGBT+ activists call it a “homophobic” attack.
"This is just a homophobic attack," LGBT+ activist Raymond Karuhanga, ‘Yahoo! News’ reports.
"These were people in a club, not even on the streets. They were having fun, listening to music. Then you arrest almost 130 and charge them with being a public nuisance ... They just want to silence us as a community."
Ugandan police have denied that the raid was targeted to LGBT+ people stating they were enforcing the Tobacco Control Act, which prohibits smoking with a shisha water pipe.
"We are not targeting them and we will not," said police spokesman Patrick Onyango.
”We have done these raids in many shisha smoking places ... Yesterday, we were holding them under the Tobacco Control Act. What you heard in court are the charges (of common nuisance) that the state attorney proffered,” he added.
A few weeks ago, 16 LGBT+ activists were arrested in Uganda in charges of sex.
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